


Thine Hands Unforgiven

by bloodsongs



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Police, Community: kinkme_merlin, Crime Scenes, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-07
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-13 18:23:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/506379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodsongs/pseuds/bloodsongs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sharp, passionate and utterly brilliant, newly reinstated Detective Chief Inspector Arthur Pendragon finds himself struggling with his failing marriage while he takes on a new, chilling case: a perfect and precise crime with no found weapon, no evidence and seemingly no motive that left celebrated astrophysics prodigy Merlin Emrys an orphan.</p><p>Their dance is a dangerous one fraught with dark dreams and intentions. Arthur finds an unexpected kindred spirit in Merlin while Merlin develops a strange fascination with Arthur. It's a kind of gravitation that neither of them can resist.</p><p>Based on the series, "Luther".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://kinkme-merlin.livejournal.com/32238.html?thread=32781806#t32781806) on Kink Me, Merlin!
> 
> Also, a disclaimer: Characters from Luther and this incarnation of Merlin belong to the BBC and Shine production companies respectively — I own nothing.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur interviews the victim of his first case since he returned to the job: Merlin.

The first time they meet, Merlin’s the picture of perfect devastation, all wide eyes and quivering lips.

 Arthur doesn’t really think much of it. He’s chuffed that he’s back in the office, with his grinning colleagues welcoming him back with cheers and mugs with the cheesiest printed messages, but  his mind’s all on Gwen, Gwen who’d said she’d see him tonight, shadows and reluctance framing her thin and lovely face.

It’s clichéd, but the first thing that comes to mind when he opens the door and strides into the room with Merlin Emrys is that at thirty-eight, he’s getting too old for this shite. He brushes fingers absently over his stubble, more out of habit than anything else, and sweeps his gaze over Merlin.

Young, with something wild and desperate in his downcast expression, Merlin’s fidgety and restless in his chair, hands picking at the clothes they’d dressed him in after they found him shocked into silence with blood all over him at the crime scene. The briefest surge of pity creeps through Arthur, but there’s something that doesn’t feel too right about this whole situation.

Arthur can’t put his thumb on it.

“Mr. Emrys,” he begins, reining in his discomfort and uncertainty. Merlin’s eyes snap up to him, moving to tap his fingers against the table in some kind of distracting rhythm, and Arthur meets his gaze steadily.

Merlin averts his eyes to look down at the table, almost meek. “Merlin, please.”

A deferent voice, but soft-spoken with a melodious lilt. It’s a little hypnotising. “Hello,” Arthur says, still standing. “I’m Arthur Pendragon, DCI and senior investigating officer of this case.” He quirks a thumb at the empty chair on the other side of the table, casual. “May I?”

Blinking, Merlin nods his head jerkily, his brows furrowed. He looks fatigued and pale. “Of course.”

Merlin’s piercing blue eyes are fixed on him as he walks over and sits down, making a show of loosening his burgundy tie as he does. It helps victims — and potential suspects — he’s interviewing relax, sometimes. “It’s been difficult for you,” Arthur offers conversationally. “You look exhausted.”

The pause hangs for a while between them as Merlin takes in a shuddering breath, closing his eyes briefly, long lashes dark against his cheeks. “Yes,” Merlin says after a moment, voice shaking, looking out the window to his left. He bites his bottom lip. “I... Everything seems like the remnants of a particularly bad dream, but. It’s real, it’s terrifying, and... I’ve never been this tired.” 

Arthur leans forward, slightly, heart clenching a little when Merlin’s eyes well, tears threatening to roll down his face. He’s good at his job, but he’s never really been able to detach himself from the emotions victims stir in him — righteous anger, the vengeance that claws at his chest, the need to tear someone apart that sings in his blood. Come to think of it, that is probably why he’s good at his job. “Trauma does that to you. The shock. It’s how our body reacts. One of those peculiar things about nature, I’m afraid.”

Merlin nods again, worrying his lip until it’s red.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Arthur links his fingers together, and he does mean it. He means it every time he says, even through the haze of anger that grips him tightly like fangs around his neck when he does. Wanting justice and knowing that some of the worst, despicable criminals never truly get what’s coming to them beyond a lifetime behind bars breaks you a little each time, but the fury always surges up again, white-hot.  

It’s a beast he can’t chain.

“I know this has been a terrible experience for you. Harrowing. Things must seem grim and hopeless and you must feel very alone, after what happened.We will do everything we can, everything that’s within our power, to find out who did this.”

“Thank you,” Merlin whispers.

Arthur clears his throat. “I’ll have to ask you a few questions.”

 He runs Merlin through the usual cycle of questions, watching him carefully throughout. Merlin’s just distraught, growing increasingly agitated as Arthur presses him lightly about the subject of his parents, if there was anyone, anyone at all that he recalled who might have a grudge, or even if it might’ve been sexually motivated based on how the pieces just didn’t add up. 

 Everything about the murders felt personal, intimate, like there was a point to prove. The murderer had all but homed in; it was too clean, too precise. Impeccable, almost. There was a dead dog at the scene, too, heinously wrecked by several gunshots to the muzzle and chest; Arthur really can’t imagine for the life of him who might have developed such a vendetta to do _that_ to a household pet, even if a barking dog was a threat that would’ve alerted neighbours to a disturbance.

 Arthur notes that for future reference.

 “Think,” he urges Merlin, whose face is splotched and red now from emotion. “Anything at all, perhaps something you might have missed, financial problems, if your parents had... any marital difficulties, at all—”

 He almost sees Merlin break before he actually does as Merlin tenses, gripping the table tightly, his expression crumbling as the tears start to fall. “I’ve done nothing but think,” Merlin says, voice trembling. “Think, think, think. There’s nothing. Please. I close my eyes and I see them before me, cold and gone and blood, blood _everywhere._ Were that I could stop _thinking.”_

 Arthur keeps his gaze fixed on Merlin, moving the back of his thumb against his chin.

 “There’s nothing,” Merlin repeats brokenly, after a fashion. 

 He nods. “I’m sorry. There’s really nothing suspicious, nothing questionable, no one...?” Arthur’s been compared to a dog with a bone; he pushes, and pushes, and pushes.

 Everything about this doesn’t make sense.

 Shaking his head, Merlin says, “No. None at all... I’m sorry. I wish I could offer something, anything.” He turns his head abruptly at his last word, adopting a faraway look. “It’s so strange. Everything feels disconnected, like it happened a long way away, a long time before.”

 Arthur makes a noncommittal sound, leaning back against his chair, staring intently at Merlin. “The shock and the stress,” he replies, his mouth running on autopilot as he catalogues every little fidgeting movement Merlin makes, as he takes in every variation of Merlin’s hallowed expression. “Our bodies adapt and react to that kind of stimuli... well. Sometimes the recollection’s not what we’re used to, and we remember things differently. Disjointed, as you said.”

 Merlin is silent as he looks back at him, painfully earnest. He’s still, his back ramrod straight. Attentive. 

 Well.

 There is really no way Merlin can be this disconnected from his family, with this kind of absolute ignorance. Arthur is in no position to comment because of how estranged he, Uther and Morgana are from one another; it’s been years since he’s last heard from either of them. Merlin, though...

 Their locked gazes don’t break as Arthur yawns, exaggerating it a little as he hides it behind a palm. Merlin doesn’t so much as blink, much less yawn in return.

 “I’m sorry,” Arthur says after a moment, affecting a sleepy half-grin. “It’s been a long day.” His mind’s racing at the implications, and Merlin’s still looking at him. There’s a flash there, behind those sad blue eyes, and then it’s gone. 

 “No, no. It’s fine,” Merlin murmurs in response, politely returning a smile, even though his brows are furrowed.

 It’s like a fog’s lifted, but he can’t quite see the tree for the woods, still.

 Arthur stands up, the drag of the chair obscenely loud in the little cell (everyone calls it a room, he’ll call a spade a spade when he sees one). “Can I get you a coffee?”

 Merlin smiles wetly, wiping against his mouth and cheeks gently with the back of his hand. “Do you have Earl Grey?”

 “We do,” Arthur affirms, and he flashes Merlin a quick reassuring expression before the door clicks shut behind him and he picks up his stride, walking over quickly to his team.

He slams his folder against a cubicle table later, starting a couple of the lance-corporals hovering behind another desk, and presses his palms firmly against the table. His team looks back, eyebrows raised.  
  
"He did it," Arthur snarls. "Emrys. It was him."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur interrogates Merlin, and Merlin starts a little flirtatious exchange.

“How—” Elyan looks at Arthur, sitting back in his chair. “It was his family!”

The team starts muttering when Arthur walks over to the monitor the interrogation room’s CCTV display is currently being viewed on. Merlin’s pixelated outline stays still, perfectly still, while he looks around the room as if finding something interesting in the white walls, a noticeable change from the broken act he’d put on just seconds before. 

“Why do you say he did it, sir?” Percival asks.

“He didn’t yawn when I did,” Arthur says, turning to Annis, his immediate superior, who folds her arms and tilts her head as if prompting him to continue. He does, while playing back the footage they’d recorded. “He didn’t yawn. Yawning’s contagious. Even if you’re talking about it—”

Annis, Elyan, Percival and a couple of others around him immediately clap their hands to their mouths, trying to suppress their inevitable yawns.

Arthur makes an impatient gesture. “There you go. Yawning’s linked to parts of your brain that work with empathy. He didn’t yawn.” He snaps his fingers. “Psychopath!”

“Good to have you back, Pendragon,” Annis says, expression stern but approving.

“Actually, it’s true. He doesn’t act like a survivor at all. There’s no survivor guilt in the way he speaks, nor in his behaviour. ‘Why didn’t they go for me? Why them?’ That’s not usual. It’s not about him being distraught, because he clearly is, acting or otherwise.” Percival replays the footage again.

Elyan hums, thinking. “If it’s a kind of scenario like this, the offender stages the scene. They’ll make it a murder, a suicide, or even steal some things, make it look like a robbery gone wrong.”

“Yeah, Elyan, but that didn’t happen now, did it? He didn’t do anything like that.” Percival says.

“He didn’t want to,” Arthur tucks his thumbs in his pockets, leaning against the edge of a table. “He’s proud of this. That he did this, and no one knows how, and that they can’t pin it on somebody else. No,” he amends. “He doesn’t want it pinned on someone else.”

“Surely, for an alibi—” Annis starts.

“Irrelevant. He’s a malignant narcissist.” Arthur taps the screen again, where it’s frozen on Merlin’s face, a hint of a smirk hiding behind that weak smile, bright eyes calculating. He didn’t really notice it before, but really zooming in on it now brings out the little tics in Merlin’s expression that implies something more sinister about the young man. “Power. Prestige. Self-affirmation. That’s what it’s about for him.’”

Annis tuts. “He wasn’t there at the time, Pendragon. Emrys was at the grocer’s, and he does have an alibi.”

“That’s the whole point! ‘I did this, and you can’t prove I did’. He’s kicking back, having laid out clues that would inevitably trail back to him being the killer, but none that are significant enough to find him guilty.”

“Where’s the gun, then?” Walking up to him, Annis looks Arthur in the eye. “Man, woman, dog, all shot. There’re the bullets, where’s the weapon they were fired with?”

Arthur looks away. “I don’t know.”

Annis chuckles, just a bit. “What? Don’t think I quite heard you. That’s a first.”

“I really don’t know, but I sure as fuck am going to find out.” 

Arthur pops an Earl Grey teabag into Merlin’s mug and an English Breakfast into his own, before nodding at everyone in their little circle and walking back towards the interrogation room.

He pushes the door open with a shoulder, taking care to not spill anything. “Thanks for waiting.”

“Thank  _you_  for getting me tea. You didn’t have to,” Merlin says, sweetly charming, and it’s a little disarming, Arthur has to admit. He’s got his vulnerable look on again, and Arthur’s just thankful he’s not a rookie who’d be easily taken in by Merlin’s little tricks. 

Sliding Merlin’s red mug over. “Is your chair all right?”

Merlin smiles at him, but he moves a little in his seat, as if trying to find a best position. “It’s fine, thank you for asking.”

Arthur takes a sip from his own mug of tea, a gigantic white thing with text that blares: ‘You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!’ It had been a gift from the department just days before when he’d rejoined the force. “Sometimes we like to shorten one of the legs,” he says conversationally, eyes flicking to Merlin’s chair. “That way, a suspect can’t really relax, or get comfortable. We’ll keep them on edge.”

Merlin looks up at him then, and then it’s like something shifts in the room, a kind of vertigo. When Arthur meets Merlin’s eyes, he can see now that Merlin’s picked up on how things have changed between them. That Arthur’s no longer seeing him as the victim.

Smart boy. Too smart.

Arthur quirks a smirk at him, and Merlin blinks his eyes slowly, returning it, like a challenge.

“Ph.D at eighteen, Merlin?” He flips a page of his notes. “Astrophysics.”

“Yes,” Merlin replies, pleasantly, not bothering with being disconsolate and grieving anymore. What a change from that crying mess earlier, the picture of shaky strength in the face of loss. “I wrote on ‘Dark Matter Distribution in Disc Galaxies.’”

He draws the memory from some corner of his mind. “Dark Matter. It’s what makes up the universe, doesn’t interact with the things we know in space in ways we expect.”

Merlin tsks, and it would be patronising coming from someone else, but Merlin continues on with the explanation as a Fellow who’s had to explain this a few times to some students in seminars who’re much older than he is. “No,  _but_ you can infer the presence of Dark Matter by its gravitation effects on visible matter. We’re aware it’s there, we just—”

“—can’t see it,” Arthur finishes for him.

The things they don’t really say after that fill the space between them, resulting in a silence that’s stifling. Merlin links his fingers, resting them on the edge of the table. They’re not shaking anymore either, Arthur notes. Crafty, manipulative little thing.

“Detective Chief Inspector,” Merlin says, coy. “May I call you Arthur?”

Arthur doesn’t answer. 

“You’re knowledgeable, Arthur.” And Merlin calls him Arthur, anyway, taking silence for permission.

He shrugs, propping an elbow against the table, resting his chin against his palm. “I read books.”

“Least you don’t burn them,” Merlin replies, shifting his smile from friendly to winsome, like he’s seen something he wants in Arthur’s expression, angling for it.

Arthur doesn’t break eye contact, and in doing so, marvels at the transformation from teary-eyed Merlin to sly, cunning Merlin in what seems to have been minutes. He’s intrigued, despite himself. “You, though.” he points at Merlin, sees Merlin smile down at his finger, amused. “You’re the one who’s practically a genius.”

“Only practically?” Merlin laughs, as though he can’t believe his ears. 

He’s itching at that little friendly provocation, because Arthur knows he wants to be acknowledged, wants to be lauded. So Arthur doesn’t give that to him, only grins, slow. They’re both seated, eyes trained on each other, and he’s suddenly reminded of two predators circling each other, looking for an opening to attack. This is fun, because while they’re two hunters playing a game that Arthur knows all too well, it’s been a long time since Arthur’s messed around with a  _genius._

He can take Merlin. Merlin’s interest seems piqued, too, and Arthur gets the feeling he’s the type to get bored easily. Now, he’s looking at Arthur like Arthur’s a new toy, and he’s figuring out the mechanics. 

Merlin can certainly try.

“When did you start reading at Oxford, Merlin?”

“Thirteen,” comes the drawled reply, as Merlin waits for Arthur to make his next move.

“That’s a very young age. It’s already bad, being the smart one in any family, but being a kid genius? Them young prodigies, I don’t know how they handle it. They don’t belong, they’re neither here nor there. Freaks, hey?” He doesn’t miss the way Merlin’s eyes narrow at the perceived slight. It’s fun provoking Merlin because he’s intelligent, but proud. Now that Arthur all but knows he’s the killer, the little signs are all there. Merlin’s just waiting, eager, for Arthur to point things out, so he can deconstruct all his arguments, while still all but lording over Arthur that he’s the one responsible with everything but a confession.

“But I imagine your parents must have been very proud,” he adds after, a frivolous statement to cushion his barbs.

Merlin’s smile is tight, but he takes the fake olive branch. “Certainly. Couple of articles of me in the papers, they couldn’t wait to share the news. I proved tan -1x when I was nine, and then I was on TV, with mum and dad and the new jacket they’d got me as a reward.”

Arthur just nods. “Still, must’ve been pretty difficult. What was it like, being thirteen while everyone was, what, in their twenties? Twenty-two, at a minimum? Must’ve been difficult without any friends your age. No girlfriends.”

“You’re making presumptions, Arthur.” Merlin leans slightly forward, curling Arthur’s name on his tongue like he’s trying out the sound, pitching it low and sensual. He looks directly at Arthur, letting his eyelids flutter half-shut. “I matured early. Sexually. Had girlfriends  _and_ boyfriends, but I found most of them wanting.”

He is a very beautiful young man from this angle, Arthur can see, all that dark hair and long eyelashes as he turns on the charm. With those words echoing into silence in the room, he sees in his mind’s eye precisely what he imagines Merlin wants him to see: Merlin pulling a girl flush against him on a bed and kissing down between her legs, and instances where Merlin rides a professor’s cock in a darkened lecture hall. 

Arthur won’t let Merlin have the satisfaction of seeing him contemplate the different possibilities. “Think you were too good for them?”

“I got bored,” Merlin says simply, looking at him intently. “I like them brilliant. Sharp. With quick minds.”

He supposes it’s a little flattering, in some ways, how a clever young murder suspect like Merlin is being flirtatious with him, but he doesn’t really have the patience for that right now. “D’you know Ockham’s Razor?”

Merlin closes his eyes, and twirls his fingers in an absent gesture. “‘All things being equal,’” he recites, “‘the simplest solution is the best solution.’”

“And so it is. The only other person we know to have been in your parents’ house this morning was you.”

“I don’t see how it’s possible to arrive at that conclusion.”

Arthur taps his fingers against the table. “No evidence of an intruder.”

“Absence of evidence and evidence of absence are not the same thing,” Merlin replies coolly.

“I’m going to go with another tiny assumption here—” Arthur starts.

“Is this where you ask if I hated my parents?” Smiling serenely, Merlin settles back, putting his mug to his lips.

“Rather.”

Merlin shrugs. “So, did they make me a freak? Oh, yes. Did I hate them? Absolutely. But, did I kill them?”

A beat.

“No,” Merlin says, softly. “I didn’t.”

“Prove it.”

“I can’t prove a negative. Can’t be done.”

Arthur idly plays with the string attached to his teabag. “Innocence is a negative. It’s the absence of guilt.”

“As with theologists, the burden of proof is entirely yours,” Merlin says, triumphant. “If you believe I did this, then  _you_ need to demonstrate how and when.”

Setting his mug down on the table, Arthur straightens in his chair and looks at Merlin, who’s smiling like a cat who got to a canary and watching his every little movement. Waiting for the first misstep. Little bastard’s even smarter than he first imagined.

He wants a smoke. “And I won’t be able to do that, hmm?”

“You’re welcome to try,” Merlin says, affecting that drawl again. It’s lazy, leisurely, hints at the rebellion of a child forced to grow up too early.

“Because there’s nothing. You don’t interact with the things we know in the way we’d expect. Your presence and actions, Merlin—” he pauses in the middle of repeating Merlin’s description of dark matter back at him, “—they can only be inferred by, ah, a certain absence.”

Merlin looks delighted, and he really looks his age now, fresh-faced and beaming. “That a compliment?”

“Maybe.”

Flashing him a cheeky smile, Merlin tilts his head and raises an eyebrow at him. “I hope you’re not trying to beguile me, DCI Pendragon,” he murmurs, almost a purr.

“Nothing so futile,” Arthur says nonchalantly, sweeping his notes and files out on the table. Merlin’s still smirking at him. “I’m sure you’re savouring every moment of this, knowing we can’t get to you. Crowing over your accomplishment.”

“Oh?”

Arthur stands up, and places both hands on the table, leaning in towards Merlin’s side as much as possible, staring him down. “People slip up. Every single time. It’s only a matter of time, with you.”

Merlin meets him eye-for-eye, unfazed. “That’s just faulty logic postulated on imperfect data collection. Consider this: what if you only caught people who made those mistakes? How about the rest? That’d skew the figures.”

“Oh, it would.” The gall of this imperious boy! He wants to laugh, but the fact remains that this same imperious boy is innocent until proven guilty, and Arthur has no evidence at all to the contrary to lord over him. Cunning little shit, but Arthur admires that in him. “But see, it’s just that. Most criminals aren’t as clever as they think they are, Merlin.”

“Mmm,” Merlin hums, smiling, tilting his chin up and showing his teeth. “Things must get so  tedious around here, for someone of your brilliance.”

Arthur draws back, and smiles too, knowing it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It’s a game, all right, and Merlin’s left the ball in his court. 

He leaves the room, leaving Merlin alone.

"I'm not wrong," he says later, looking at Annis and folding his arms, silently asking for agreement from his team. 

"No," Leon says, his other DCI partner.

"Prove it, Pendragon." Annis draws herself up to her full height, cutting quite the imposing figure. She's not a Detective Superintendent for nothing. "We've no motive, the timeline doesn't work. No evidence, no witnesses."

Arthur grits his teeth. "You saw his reaction! You can tell he did this!"

"Evidence!" Annis snaps at him. "Prove it. Find the gun and put it in his hands, if you must. Until you can do that, we can't hold him here. Let him leave."

Shaking his head, Arthur walks back to the room and opens the door, clears his throat. "Merlin."

Merlin looks up, expectant.

"You're free to go," Arthur says, clipped. "Thank you for your cooperation." 

"Ah," Merlin sighs, as he stands. It isn't one of relief; it's satisfaction.  


Arthur steps aside as Merlin walks towards the door, regarding him warily, when Merlin stops.

He turns to Arthur, and moves closer, getting up in his personal space.

"I rather enjoyed our chat, Arthur," Merlin says, softly.

"As did I," Arthur replies, feeling his heart beat quicker despite himself.

"You're a very interesting man." Merlin turns around, looking back at Arthur, and winks. "I might decide to keep you."

Arthur watches him walk away, all quiet grace and a hint of darkness, and feels a sense of foreboding.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur speaks to Guinevere and realises he's too old for this shite when he pulls an all-nighter in a bar with Leon.
> 
> And then there's Merlin.

Arthur has nothing on Merlin; nothing concrete. It vexes him, because Merlin knows he knows, smiling that grateful smile at Arthur for the others’ benefit, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s tinged with something darker, something sharper, something they both share.

Merlin sees Arthur for who he really is, the different sides to him; the genius, and something darker that lurks within. 

Guinevere finally opens the door after he knocks a few more times, brows furrowed, a reprimand lying somewhere in the quirk of her frown. She’s just as lovely as he remembered. “I heard you the first time, Arthur.”

“Nice to see you again, Guinevere.” He pointedly doesn’t let his eyes linger on her bare ring finger, the familiar gold band nowhere in sight. Arthur puts on a warm smile instead, hoping that masks the hurt well enough. “I’ve missed you.”

Her expression softens at that. Arthur takes in the rest of her face, not being able to help his instinctual tendencies to profile and examine. Guinevere has new lines on her face —worry lines, sad lines— and she’s even more fidgety than before, shifting from foot to foot where she’s blocking Arthur’s way.

“You look beautiful,” he blurts, feeling like it’s their first date all over again, because she’s all dressed up tonight, decked in swaths of lilac silk. Coughing politely, he tilts his head. “May I?”

Guinevere seems to come back to herself, looking troubled. “Of course.”

It’s strange, asking for permission to enter his own home. “Did you miss me?” He’s not sure why he asks it, a question so heavy with insecurity, but he’s somehow out of his comfort zone in a place that he should feel like himself most in. 

_Not anymore,_ his traitorous mind whispers.

“Of course,” Gwen replies quickly. Too quickly. 

“I missed you, too,” he says. He still does. It feels like pins and needles, only instead of a numb pain attacking a sleepy limb, it’s his heart. “I... I missed us here. In our house.”

“Arthur.”

He takes a deep breath. “How — how are you, today? Did you have a good day at work?”

She does smile at his question, and walks to the kitchen. Absently pours him some water with a squeeze of lemon, the way he’s always liked it. “It was all right, I suppose. And how was it back at the office for you?”

God, it’s like they’re strangers, not spouses of fifteen years. “Unexpectedly welcoming. Annis was a bit rough on me, but you know how she is.” He takes out his phone and slides his finger over the screen until he finds the photo of the ridiculous mug. “Look at what they got me.”

Gwen laughs, and for some reason, Arthur’s heart breaks a little more. “Oh, at least the lads at the SCU haven’t lost their sense of humour.”

“Yeah, bet it was Leon who thought of it, that bastard.” His best friend, there for him through thick and thin since the academy. “He told me you were doing well, when you—” His voice stutters, as if his words are just catching up with his brain. “When you didn’t want to see me.”

“He was very pleasant,” Gwen says, lowering her eyes. “Leon thinks the world of you.”

Arthur doesn’t know what to say to that, so he nurses his glass. Wishes it’s whiskey.

“I have to tell you something,” Gwen says suddenly, when Arthur makes to speak. He closes his mouth, surprised, and sits back in his chair, brows furrowed. Gwen’s ramrod straight opposite him, not even sitting down.

“Yes, Guinevere?” Arthur says.

“I’ve met someone.”

Guinevere’s brows are knotted, and she fidgets with her fingers the way she always does when she’s reluctant to bring something up.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I met someone,” she repeats. 

“What do you mean you’ve met someone?” He laughs uncertainly, but Guinevere’s not smiling. Not in the least. There’s no way that, that Guinevere would — “Met who?”

“Arthur. I’ve _met_ someone.” A third time. She sounds so tired, his Guinevere. Not looking him in the eye, she lifts a glass of wine to her lips. It’s been there for a while, next to a half-open bottle of Moscato, condensation trickling down to the tablecloth. 

The words just hang there, not quite sinking in, even when his hand clenches around his glass so strongly it begins to hurt. A smile’s never felt so heavy and awkward on his face as it does now, frozen in place when his words fail him. Suddenly, everything clicks, everything crashes, all at once. “Who?” Arthur says again, but with a completely different tone. “And when?”

Guinevere tucks a loose, curly lock of hair behind her ear, uneasy. “Some time ago. Does it matter?”

He knows it means something to her, of course it does, but her casual lilt sets off something in him as he looks at her, mouth open. The ticking of the clock behind her seems terribly loud all of a sudden. “Guinevere,” he says, his life falling to pieces around him, “Of course it matters.” 

_Because you’re leaving me._

“Arthur—”

“Are you sleeping with him?” He cuts in.

She closes her eyes, but her silence says everything she won’t. It hits Arthur like a slap to the face, the pain lingering and spreading all over him until it clenches around his heart. He stands up, hand trembling on the back of the light-coloured chair, makes for the door.

Only he can’t bring himself to leave. Arthur finds himself turning back to Guinevere, who’s biting her lip now and watching him as he paces with the helplessness settling over him like a fog, making his palms sweat and his mind delirious. 

“No,” he says, after a moment, looking up at the ceiling. Arthur chokes out a sound that’s half a laugh, half a sob, his fists curling against his sides as he takes in the cream-coloured walls he and Guinevere had painted together years ago. She’d kissed him right here at this table after they’d finished applying it together, their fingers messy with paint as he’d trailed a thumb along her jaw. “No, no, no.”

“Please,” she says, clutching the front of her gown. “Arthur, don’t...”

“Why?” He shouts then, striking out at the chair so it crashes to the floor. “Why, Guinevere?” The black rage inside him is unstoppable now, rushing to the tips of his fingers as he picks up that chair and throws it across the room against a door. 

“I thought we—” The chair splinters and breaks, and the door – oh, the door to his _study_ , or what used to be of it, it doesn’t give. “I love you. Does that mean nothing?” His study used to be such an escape for him in this house, when things were difficult at work with the dreams haunting him and Guinevere refusing to speak to him for weeks because of how _intense_ Arthur got over his cases. Obsessed. 

That fucking door. The recklessness drives him, pushes him to yank brutally at the doorknob until it comes undone, until he’s kicking the door in and the splinters are all over the carpet and what remains of the door is in his hands, clean off the hinges where he’s ripped it off, hands smarting and the back of his hands bloody where he’s cut himself on glass and wood. 

“Why would you do that?” He asks finally, pleading. Because he has to _know._ His eyes burn with tears, but his pride still refuses to let them fall. “Why?”

Guinevere doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t shake her head, doesn’t turn away. Just looks sadly at him in her stillness.

“Just go home, Arthur.” she says. Now she meets his eyes, doesn’t break their gaze. All steel, the strength that comes from years of law and being with a man like Arthur. 

He grips at the kitchen island, the smooth texture now so alien under his hands after his many months away. It’ll forever be foreign to him now, somehow, even though— “This is my home.” Not the small, cramped loft he woke up this morning alone in without Guinevere, never.

The time stretches between them, long and hushed.

“No.” Guinevere says it softly, her own eyes misting over. It’s a small, vicious comfort to Arthur that she’s not unaffected by this, that she’s shaken, even if she’s the one who’s leaving this. Leaving them. 

He leaves without saying another word, closing the front door with a muted thump, so quiet after the many things he’s broken in the kitchen. His hands sting, a small distraction he’s grateful for as he fumbles for his keys, shaking when he finally gets into the car.

A heavy rain begins to fall, streaking against his windows as the wind howls.

Arthur stays inside for a good long while, lonely and lost.

* * *

 

There’s no one in the bar, just the way Arthur prefers it.

The other patrons have cleared it by now, leaving a wide expanse of cool-gray chairs and the bartender’s full attention to be focused on Arthur as he pours him another scotch with raised eyebrows. Never judging. God bless barmen who just keep refilling your drink without asking any untoward questions. “You sure you can take another one?”

“Eh.” Arthur shrugs, swirling the dwindled block of ice in his glass before taking another gulp, relishing the sweet burn down his throat. “Keep ‘em coming.”

He sits back, sighing, feeling the churn and dizzying hit to his head that comes with trying to drink himself under the table in his late thirties. Arthur doesn’t take to alcohol as well as he used to, but he’s not going to admit that tonight. He needs it. Morning’s going to be shite, though.

“Last order soon,” the barman calls just as someone enters the bar, announcing his or her arrival with a biting draft of wind that curls where Arthur’s seated with his back to the door. “Better make it quick.”

“One of what he’s having,” comes Leon’s familiar voice, and Arthur feels almost petulant when a chair’s dragged out next to him and Leon’s patting his back. 

He looks right ahead, sounds around him dulling to a buzz. “She sent you?”

“She called me, yeah.”

“Right.”

A soft clink, and then Leon’s gulping down his own scotch before he looks at Arthur contemplatively from the corner of his eye.

It’s almost like old times, Guinevere calling Leon to talk to Arthur when they’ve had a bad argument and he comes to this very same bar to brood. Except it’s probably the last and only time this will ever happen again. “Something you wanted to say?”

“Did you want me to?” Leon asks, looking away from Arthur, profile sharp against the occasional bright flicker of a lamp in the corner.

Arthur closes his other hand around his glass, leans his forehead against it. “Nah.”

Leon sets his glass down. “Then I won’t.”

They just sit there like that for a long time, not getting anymore refills after a while. The barman glances their way sometimes, but he’s seen Arthur around often enough to not kick him out, knows a copper in the bar can come in handy. Probably helps he looks like all hell, too.

When Leon gets up to go to the bathroom, Arthur places his hands on the counter, looking at his wedding ring. Thinks about how long he’d waited for the right time to propose to Guinevere, only to blurt it out when they’d been walking along a bridge together. He’s kept it clean and polished, this small band of enduring gold, so lasting it’s outlasted his actual marriage.

Arthur takes it off and slips it in his pocket.

The finality is cruel, but not nearly as terrible as the sad, firm gaze Guinevere had turned on him that evening. His left hand feels empty now without it. 

He did love her. Does. He didn’t see them drifting apart, truly. But it’s goodbye now, and he’ll soldier on in the morning, as he always does.

* * *

 

The TV chatters on softly in the background as Merlin stirs in another spoonful of brown sugar into his coffee, taking it nearly scalding hot. He’s up early as he always is, finished already with his eggs and soldiers, small plates tucked neatly away for cleaning later.

Sighing, he reaches for the remote and turns the news off. His open, unbuttoned white shirt hangs loosely off his shoulder while he sits down at the dining table, pulling his laptop towards him. 

“Arthur Pendragon,” Merlin says to himself, doing a cursory Google search on the man. It’s been only a day, but he finds that he’s... intrigued. Granted, he’s not had the best record with older men, but that’s probably due to his tendency to seduce his professors away from their wives and getting a kick out of the drama that inevitably unfolds. It’s not that Pendragon is good-looking, even though he  _is_ an incredibly attractive man – it’s his demeanour that appeals to Merlin, that quiet confidence that shuts Merlin down because he’s not standing for any of his bullshit. His shining brilliance. Merlin can appreciate that, just as he can appreciate Google turning up hundreds of results for his search. “Aha.”

The top hits are very interesting indeed. He swipes a thumb, slow, over a blurry picture of Arthur exiting a court room, tight-lipped and tense, and doesn’t miss an inset photograph of a criminal he helped apprehend and – isn’t this  _something –_ possibly landed in a coma. 

_ARTHUR PENDRAGON ARRESTS SERIAL KILLER GILLI HARPER_ blares out at him from the screen when another tab with BBC News finally loads. Gilli, a man with a likeable, serene smile in a photograph wanted for the abductions of several young children and murders of the same. The picture of Arthur here has him with his hair frazzled, tired eyes half-lidded in front of several microphones shoved in his face.

“What are you hiding?” Merlin murmurs, clicking on several other links. 

As far as the reporters are concerned, nobody truly knows what happened the night of the arrest. Merlin bites down on his thumb as he keeps scrolling – the official word out is that an accident had happened at the end of the chase, when Arthur had cornered him and he’d fallen from several stories high. Somehow, he doubts that.

Arthur has the look of a haunted man about him, demons at his back. For someone who feels so strongly about the law, who has such passion barely kept in check... yes, there’s more to this than meets the eye.

A loud honk startles Merlin out of his reverie, and he tears his eyes away from the laptop a moment to the skyline in front of him. London, never really sleeping, but stirring to life in the morning now with all its glittering lights. He smooths a palm over his glass table and cradles his cup of coffee, smirking as he remembers Arthur’s wedding ring.

What kind of woman would he be married to? Someone who could match Arthur’s fire and  darkness? The Census reveals a Guinevere Smythe from Arthur’s profile, smiling sheepishly in the camera as she clutches at a scarf about her neck. It’s an early photo of her, which is why an updated page of her as Guinevere Pendragon the human rights lawyer takes Merlin by surprise. Her eyes are gimlets in it, those loose curls in her previous photograph tied up now in a tight bun. 

Steel to fire. “How very nice to meet you, Mrs. Pendragon.”

Merlin sets his coffee down, snapping a picture of Guinevere’s office address before he walks to the sink. 

He wonders how she’s like.

* * *

 

“Aw, hell,” Arthur says, squinting at the bright light outside after the better part of a night in near-complete darkness.

“You can say that again.” Leon looks up at just squeezes his eyes shut. “The sun’s not even really up yet.”

Pulling at his tie, Arthur tries not to think about how he’s been in these same clothes for over a day. His body feels like it’s shutting down, limbs yawning and nerves drawn tight. “It’s almost 8.”

“There’s some time before we have to go in, though. Want to catch a few winks?”

Arthur doesn’t reply, hands in his pocket.

Leon sighs. “Where’re you headed, then?”

“Y’know those ear worms? When you hear a song once on the radio, can’t stop thinking about it.”

“I can think of a few. Some really weird ones.” Leon has a thoughtful expression, and then he grimaces. “And I _mean_ , really weird.”

“Yeah. So it’s stuck in my head. I keep thinking that... he’s a narcissist. Needs constant recognition, his achievements to be celebrated. Elevated.” He snaps his fingers, making Leon flinch. Arthur thinks maybe he looks a little wild, what with the not sleeping and all, but presses on. “My question is: how does someone like that keep secret his greatest accomplishment — this grand, perfect execution? His best success?”

Leon, bless him, just looks resigned. “You really don’t need to be thinking about Merlin Emrys right now. Give it a break.”

“You got a better suggestion for me, do you?” Arthur steps back, throws his arms open and raises an eyebrow. “What should I think about — Harper? My wife?”

“I’m just saying. It’s 7.50 in the morning, how about, I don’t know, an omelette for breakfast? Something normal.”

He does think about Harper every other day, regret and fury churning inside him. Twisted Harper, who thought he was doing his victims a favour by keeping them young forever. Who’d taken forever to track down because of his careful work and spotless testimonials from everyone who’d so much as spoken to him. 

The man had been a _teacher._ It makes Arthur’s skin crawl to think about the hundreds of children that had been under his care for years — the smile on Harper’s face when Arthur had demanded, “How many? How many more?” after uncovering the truth about the ten boys and girls he’d been too late to save, even if he’d tore little Chelsea from Harper’s grasp at gunpoint with his bare hands.

“Normal.” Arthur laughs, tucking his hands in his pockets, a wind whipping back his coat as he begins walking. Leon follows suit, a few steps behind down this red-bricked street and its dreary, peeling doors. “Look. Merlin — to him, the world’s done nothing but disappoint him. He’s been brought up as a freak, put on display while he’s had to grit his teeth. People have offended him. Humiliated him. He’s on the warpath to punish them. This is the first incident we know of, and he’s gotten off scot-free.”

He rubs at his chin, grits his teeth. “Merlin’s definitely set on his next target. Leon, he won’t stop until someone stops him. Until I stop him.”

“Yes, so just wait it out,” Leon says, turning a corner with him as the road slopes down. “Build a case. If he’s going to go after someone else—”

Arthur stops dead in his tracks to look at Leon incredulously. “There is no case. He didn’t leave one. Didn’t leave anything. Any evidence.”

“So,” Leon says, slumping back. “So, what’re you thinking?”

“It’s a compulsion. He needs to impress — impress anyone, everyone, but at this very moment, he needs to impress me. To show off and show me just how brilliant he is. For me to acknowledge him. Because he needs to be admired—”

“Arthur,” Leon says, nodding, taking a breath to say something, but Arthur cuts him off, too riled up now.

“And I’ll give that to him, yeah.” Arthur grabs Leon by the arms, shaking him a little. Leon, patient as always, just waits for Arthur to finish his train of thought. “Then I’ll take it away. Make him angry. Careless.”

“Arthur!” Leon says again, as Arthur steps back. “Just... slow down. All right?”

"Not a chance," Arthur says, walking away as he opens Merlin Emrys’ address details on his phone before breaking into a run.

* * *

 

Gray concrete and tall buildings everywhere this side of the city, Arthur muses as he locks his hands, leaning over the bridge Merlin said he’d meet him at. The water’s murky and the sky’s cloudy, but he wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world.

Merlin walks up to him, looking obnoxiously chipper. Then again, he’s not the one who’d just pulled an all-nighter nursing glasses of alcohol. “Good morning,” Merlin says, leaning against the bridge and mirroring Arthur’s pose, a small bag dangling from his wrist. “DCI Pendragon.”

“Hardly,” he snorts, and then Merlin’s turning around and opening the bag with a loud crinkle, revealing the little brass tin inside.

Arthur raises an eyebrow in question, making a small waving motion for Merlin to get on with an explanation.

“They burned my dog,” Merlin says, nodding at the bag, blue eyes looking genuinely hurt. Hell, he’s _pouting._

“Protocol,” Arthur answers, because what the hell do you even say to that? “They had to do it.”

Merlin holds the bag out at him imploringly when Arthur leans back against the railing, resting his elbows there. “He was only a dog.” Looking inside the bag again, Merlin sighs at the sight of the tin and lets his hands drop. “Seems unduly pitiless to burn someone’s dog, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Arthur says, looking intently at Merlin. “Seems unduly pitiless to shoot the dog in the first place.”

Merlin tucks his hands behind his back, and just looks at Arthur, as if really seeing him for the first time since they’d started talking. Cocking his head, he steps forward, eyes widening almost in sympathy. “Oh,” he says softly, surprised, looking Arthur up and down. Taking in everything, no doubt, from the bags under his eyes and his stubble to his crumpled coat. “You look terribly tired. Would you like to come over?”


End file.
